Gadgetory

you know it wasn't that long ago that folks were grumbling that requiring seat belts in cars was commie socialist stuff today that commie label is applied to decidedly more high-tech innovations I'm Brian Cooley with the top 5 ways the man is changing your car number 5 autonomous cars you know self-driving Nevada and California recently forced the issue by making these legal now the feds are playing catch-up likely to issue national rules by 2016 that's going to signal it's time to open the floodgates of investment in cars that take over 80% of the driving that you don't really want to do anyway number 4 distracted driving regulations the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been floating these tortured proposals for limiting in-car distraction like saying that a text display should have no more than 30 characters at a time or any screen based tasks and take no more than two seconds they clearly haven't used an Android phone have that whatever the specifics this federal push will be what moves distracted driving to the same level of stigma as DUI number three rear cameras this rule has been delayed more times than BlackBerry's comeback but the feds are close to requiring a backup camera and all new vehicles perhaps by late 2014 the car makers say it's gonna jack up the price of a car too much but most likely they don't want to lose the ability to make the rear camera a desirable option instead of a standard feature number two are black box data recorders they're already in 90 plus percent of late-model cars probably yours that you didn't know that but the feds will soon require them in all new cars sold the gripe here is that the feds are gonna require the black boxes but the state's control access to the data and barely more than a dozen of them even have laws that address it the number one way that regulations will change cars tomorrow is the new 50 four-and-a-half mpg fuel economy standard that's the level that must be met by the average of all cars sold by any maker as of 2025 it's this incredibly complicated formula they use to figure it out but still a huge bump from today's 29.7 fleet average and not that many years away that means we're going to see three cylinder engines turbos and almost everything hybrids galore cars that shut themselves off at a stop sign or red light and electric cars on showroom Lots even if nobody wants to buy one and it's estimated to add some $3,000 to the average MSRP by 2025 no federal rule will change cars or the cost of them as much as this one to stay on top of all the new innovations happening in cars the one you have today and the one you'll buy tomorrow check out our show at CNET on cars.com i'm brian coulis thanks for watching